Grim Reaper Wants to Top, but Bottoms
About:
Warning:
This review will contain spoilers for the manga and anime series Jun and the Grim Reaper. While the manga may vary slightly from all other forms of media, it may have similar story elements and could be considered spoilers.
Content Warning: There may be references to dubcon, noncon, power imbalance, age gap, violence, death, overwork, virgin-shaming, blood, and near-death experiences, as they appear in the manga.
Synopsis:
This is the spin-off to My Demon Cry Baby, Maria.
Kyoji is a grim reaper, but he’s also a virgin. And he has just the person in mind to give his virginity to. He wants Jun, but Jun is an autosexual – attracted to himself above anyone else. Still, Kyoji is determined, and as a supernatural being, he has all the power and time to pursue Jun. Jun is steadily worn down, but to Kyoji’s surprise, it’s not his front virginity that Jun is going to take. Jun is very much a top, and he’s all too happy to play with the grim reaper, despite his complaints.
Kyoji is disappointed but pleased that this has given him an in with Jun. Determined to fuck Jun, Kyoji starts spending night after night hanging out with Jun, where the two talk about anything and everything. This has the unfortunate side effect of hurting Kyoji’s job performance. As it turns out, being a grim reaper isn’t all that different from being an office worker, with goals and KPIs. Unlike an office worker, though, poor performance for Kyoji means reincarnation into a lower lifeform – in this case, an ant.
He needs to get his job back on track but wants to be with Jun, too. Can he balance a budding relationship and his job? Or will he lose it all and become nothing more than a literal ant?
Review:
As much as I liked Maria in the first entry, I also said that Jun was not as attractive as his counterpart, ironically, the person Maria got his face from. This sequel series validates that, for sure. Jun is very unattractive in several panels, and this title does a great job of highlighting the inconsistencies in the style. It’s honestly surprising how unattractive the cover and the characters are in this entry compared to My Demon Cry Baby, Maria. Jun is so creepy and weird-looking. That’s not to say he doesn’t have cute moments, but I’m generally disappointed in this title’s art.
The story is also not as strong as My Demon Cry Baby, Maria. I think it’s really cute how desperate Kyoji is in trying to win over Jun, but their chemistry never gets better, as far as I can tell. We do get a bit of a reprieve from how weird they are by seeing the couple from My Demon Cry Baby, Maria, having sex (which is awesome, by the way), but that does take up precious time that could’ve been spent establishing the actual couple in this series. The couple does play an ancillary role as a listening ear for both Jun and Kyoji, and they help Jun realize that the ink on him isn’t from Kyoji, but even that doesn’t push the relationship forward. Jun’s main complaint is that he wants to be friends with Kyoji. They just never seem to get to that romantic, high-chemistry relationship, and that’s unfortunate.
If we were going to break away for some smut, I would’ve really liked seeing more mirror scenes from Jun. His identity as an autosexual is pretty crucial in My Demon Cry Baby, Maria, but it’s forgotten in this series, which is ironic since he’s the focus this time around. We get a few references about his self-attraction in the beginning, but that’s it. It feels like such a waste of such a funny and interesting character attribute for Jun. I would’ve loved a scene of him maybe putting Kyoji under a mounted mirror so he could look at himself while he fucked Kyoji. Then that could progress to him wanting to see how Kyoji looks while making some cute sounds, ultimately leading to Jun finding that he thinks Kyoji is cuter than himself. But this is all just my head-canon, and that makes me sad. I hope you enjoyed my fanfic (maybe I’ll create my own autosexual story – follow me on my author website if you’d be interested in that project).
Now, I’ve been pretty negative throughout this review, but there is one thing I did enjoy about this title: how it expounds on the grim reapers. I’m glad they expanded that portion of the story, as it did feel like Kyoji in My Demon Cry Baby, Maria was rolling solo, but as it turns out, there is a whole world behind the grim reaper role. People just wake up there, are given names, and then sent out to start helping people pass on with office worker-style KPIs, which really speaks to my suffering inner office drone. This was a really fun aspect of the story that I’m glad was further explored, but that’s all it is: interesting. The rest of the romantic substance around it is lost.
Results:
This was a disappointment. I wouldn’t say My Demon Cry Baby, Maria was my favorite story in the world, but it was fun, interesting, and smutty, things this didn’t come close to matching. Were there interesting elements? Yes. Was there smut? Yes. Was it fun, though? I don’t think so, and the romance was absolutely nonexistent, which was unfortunate. I do recommend you give My Demon Cry Baby, Maria a try, but this would be a skip.
Have you read Jun and the Grim Reaper? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!